Objects of Art: Prints and Photographs Collection

History of Medicine Division

Location: Building 38

The photo shown is on display in the Visitors' Center, Building 38A, and is from the Library's Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division. Title: The Cow-Pock or the wonderful effects of the new inoculation" is a hand-colored etching by the famous British caricaturist, James Gillray. It depicts the intense controversy over the wisdom of inoculating against the dread disease, smallpox. The inoculation agent, cowpox vaccine, was rumored to have the ability to sprout cow-like appendages. A serene Edward Jenner stands amid the crowd.

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM), NLM's databases of almost 60,000 historical images, documents social and historical aspects of medicine from the Middle Ages to the present. An IHM videodisk may be used in the History of Medicine Divions Reading Room and can also be accessed via the World-Wide Web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/phs_history/contents.html.